MAAM 2026 Annual Conference

What if a museum could feel less like a vault that preserves the past and more like a laboratory for exploring the present?

This intensive, full-day workshop gives museum professionals the tools to make that shift — moving from institutions that tell visitors what to think toward experiences that invite them to feel, question, and discover. Using a multi-stage methodology, participants will learn how to conceptualize exhibits and experiences that are educational, personally meaningful, and fun. The results? Experiences that give visitors fresh perspectives and transferable skills for their everyday lives.

Drawing on decades of practical experience and leadership–including the re-imagining of the International Spy Museum–the instructors will support you in moving away from “what we want to say” to “how visitors can most meaningfully experience it.” You will leave with a practical framework for experience design.

This full-day management institute is a day dedicated to developing more compassionate, effective managers. It offers participatory activities and conversation, using a combination of individual, small-group, and large-group work.

The day will include: developing your personal management approach; uncovering your core values & how they differ from your institution’s / your direct reports’; exploring complicated staff management issues through real-life case studies; and understanding organizational culture & how your management choices contribute to it

We know non-profits historically neither hire nor train for management skills, leaving staff unprepared for some aspects of their jobs. The SEED approach to management training emphasizes co-learning, co-creation, and thoughtful risk-taking. The SEED trio (Rachel, Rebecca, and David) have both museum-based management experience and research-based understanding of key management skills. As consultants, we have heard from both leadership and new and seasoned managers that good management is key to institutional (and individual) success.

Makerspaces are some of the most effective spaces for learning skills, but making is not merely an activity, it's a mindset. Freeing this mindset from the makerspace corner creates unlimited possibilities for creatively and meaningfully engaging your audience. So how can we leverage core maker approaches such as agency-building, open-ended problem solving, and reflection throughout the museum? This workshop will introduce maker-learning approaches and facilitate hands-on opportunities to apply them to your museum's content and stories. You will walk away with tools to help you bring these low cost interactives to life in your museum.

Session Takeaways:
•Redefine "making" from a localized activity to a museum-wide pedagogical framework, prioritizing agency and open-ended inquiry across all gallery types.
•Practice a methodology for mapping maker-learning traits (like reflection and iteration) onto their institution’s specific historical or cultural narratives, ensuring hands-on elements feel integrated rather than "tacked on."
•Leave with a toolkit for designing and maintaining high-impact, low-cost interactives that deliver deep engagement without the overhead of a staffed makerspace.

Often one-off programs, particularly those for neurodivergent audiences, cannot accomplish all of our program goals. A week-long intensive creates deeper opportunities for engagement, building confidence, and establishing relationships, especially for audiences with disabilities. Explore how two museums developed week-long intensives for neurodivergent children and teens, as well as extensions for program alumni, and how other cultural institutions can implement a plan and resources for similar programming. Participants will better understand the benefits of longer-term programming, be able to identify potential challenges and anticipate necessary supports ahead of time, and will start to apply resources shared to their own programming ideas.

Session Takeaways:
•Understand the benefits of longer-term programming for neurodivergent audiences.
•Identify potential challenges and anticipate necessary supports ahead of time.
•Apply resources shared to their own programming ideas.